Long Beach receives $2.4 million grant to fight lead hazards

LONG BEACH — HUD officials on Friday awarded a $2.4 million federal grant to reduce health hazards that pose dangers to children, including lead-based paint, asthma and allergy triggers.

The three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will provide nearly $2 million directly on controlling lead-related hazards in 185 Long Beach dwellings.

Long Beach was one of only four entities in the state to receive the lead-based paint grant, and has previously received more than $10 million in similar grants to assist thousands of residents.

Home buyers and renters must be told if there is any lead-based paint in the house or apartment they're interested in, according to Environmental Protection Agency rules.

Anyone who fails to inform prospective purchasers or renters about the paint could face a civil suit and possible jail sentence.

The disclosure requirement applies to lead-based paint used in houses before 1978.

There were 61,000 low-income units in Long Beach built before 1978, and 13,000 built before 1940, according to Long Beach Health Department environmental health specialist Nelson Kerr.

Since the city began its mitigation efforts in 1994, it has cleared 1,780 dwellings of lead-paint hazards, Kerr said.

"Our work is not done yet," he added.

According to the EPA, more than 64 million residences in the country contain some lead paint.

Lead poisoning attacks the nervous system and can cause brain damage. Children are susceptible to such poisoning from paint chips and dust particles, health experts say.

More than 1.7 million children under the age of 6 have unsafe lead levels in their blood, much of it from exposure from paint, according to the EPA.

Under the EPA requirement, potential buyers and renters must be given a pamphlet about health dangers of lead-based paint and be told if the residence they're looking at has any such paint. They must be given copies of any test results on the paint. Purchasers must be given 10 days to assess potential risk and inspect the property before any contract goes into effect.

"The City of Long Beach has a large number of pre-1950 s homes, which may harbor health risks such as lead-based paint, pest infestation and mold," Dr. Mauro Torno, interim city health officer, said in a statement.

"These HUD programs assist in identifying public health risks in the home and removing or controlling them," Torno added.

The second component of the grant, the Healthy Homes Program, provided $180,000, offering the delivery of interventions intended to improve the health of children with asthma, reduce housing-related environmental hazards contributing to asthma and allergies and reduce safety hazards contributing to unintentional injuries.

The grant will target downtown, Central and North Long Beach.

For more details about lead hazard control, healthy homes, or other environmental health programs offered by the Health Department, visit www.longbeach.gov/health/eh or contact Michael Netter, Lead Program Coordinator, at 562-570-4484.